Just above the western door of Chalk Church, near Gravesend, squats carved in stone a grotesque goblin figure, cross-legged and grinning with a most jovial expression as he grasps a flagon of ale. Charles Dickens in his latter years never omitted to stop and have greeting with this comical old monster. Now, this sculpture commemorates a _give ale_, bequeathed by William May, in 1512, that there should be “every year for his soull, an obit, and to make in bread six bushells of wheat, and in drink ten bushells of malt, and in cheese twenty pence, to give to poor people for the health of his soull.”
After the Reformation the Church Ales were continued, chiefly in order that the Churchwardens might by the sale of the liquor secure funds for the repair of the fabric. “There were no rates for the poor in my grandfather’s days,” says Aubrey. “But for Kingston St. Michael (no small parish) the Church Ale of Whitsuntide did the business.” Abuses rapidly crept in. Stubbs, the author of the “Anatomie of Abuses,” complains in 1583, that the ales were kept up for six weeks on end, or even longer. In the West of England instances are related of the South aisle of the church being filled with beer casks and men busy supplying all comers. The sale of liquor went on during morning service greatly to the disturbance of the officiating minister. Bishops’ injunctions, ecclesiastical canons, and orders of the justices fulminated vainly against the degenerated Church Ales. Not till the time of the Commonwealth were they finally abolished.
[Illustration: The Punch Bowl, High Easter]
Bishop Hobhouse traces the growth of the Church House into a regular tavern at Tintinhull in Somersetshire. First, there was a small bakehouse for the making of the _pain bénit_. In time this had developed into a bakery supplying the whole neighbourhood with bread. From brewing ale for Church festivals, the brewhouse undertook the regular sale of malt liquor; and it was a very profitable business for the churchwardens; so that municipal trading was not quite unknown in the olden time.
The only examples of an undoubted Church House that we have come across are the “Church Loft” at West Wycombe, in Bucks, and the exquisite half-timbered building over the Lych Gate at Penshurst. The _Castle Inn_ at Hurst, in Berkshire, is traditionally known as the Church House. The bowling-green behind this inn is one of the best in England and of great antiquity. There are many inns and other old houses near churchyards which probably began their career as Church Houses; the half-timbered “Priest house” at Langdon, in Essex, and the long plastered and tiled tudor structure over the porch at Felstead, opposite the _Swan Inn_, and formerly used as the Grammar School, may both be of this category. The _Punch Bowl_ at High Easter is actually in the churchyard; its interior framing--a marvellous piece of joinery--and the richly-moulded beams show it to have been built at the same time as part of the church, perhaps by the same craftsmen. By the way, Mr. James Stokes, the landlord for many years of the _Punch Bowl_, a worthy, good-hearted man, was in size the nearest rival of Daniel Lambert we ever met. His huge proportions were not by any means due to indolent habits. He was a thatcher by trade, and noted in the district for his activity and skill.